Part 3, Chapter 5 (pp. 254-255)
“

I know I pretend to be the apolitical businessman a lot, but the reality is that like anybody who’s interested in getting people together with the things they need and want, I have an agenda. I want people to get what they want, and I want them ideally to get it from me, but most of all I want them to be free to want it and to make offers to get it. Those poor stupid fanatics have been sold on the idea that what they want is the ability to give themselves little priggish congratulations over having done the right thing. They’d rather be right than happy. More importantly, they’d rather that I be right than happy and they’re not about to leave the choice up to me. I say, let ’em die, and I hope it’s slow and it hurts.

— John Barnes

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I know I pretend to be the apolitical businessman a lot, but the reality is that like anybody who’s interested in getting people together with the things they need and want, I have an agenda. I want people to get what they want, and I want them ideally to get it from me, but most of all I want them to be free to want it and to make offers to get it. Those poor stupid fanatics have been sold on the idea that what they want is the ability to give themselves little priggish congratulations over having done the right thing. They’d rather be right than happy. More importantly, they’d rather that I be right than happy and they’re not about to leave the choice up to me. I say, let ’em die, and I hope it’s slow and it hurts." in the context of "Part 3, Chapter 5 (pp. 254-255)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "John Barnes" (Quotes, A Million Open Doors (1992): All page numbers from the first mass market paperback edition published by Tor Books (November 1993) Nominated for the 1993 Nebula Award ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
John Barnes

About John Barnes

John Barnes (born 1957) is an American science fiction author.